I made a film for the Wikileaks Party to explain the significance of Senate preferences in the Australian electoral system, where the Wikileaks Party were running. It would still be of public interest however, to know why so many people felt they could no longer continue with the campaign.

Voting has now closed, and as we await the results – predicted one week ago by the bookies, the Murdoch press and, minutes ago, by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as a landslide victory for our right-wing Liberal Party – I will take a moment to explain what we, The Wikileaks Party, had intended to do in the Australian Senate.

We had realised that the Upper House, whose purpose was to review and adjudicate on the operations of government – our Lower House – had become more of a House of Deal-Making. Who better, we thought, than Julian Assange and his fellow-candidates to represent us in the Australian Senate, given Wikileaks’s outstanding record of ‘keeping the bastards honest’? God knows we’d tried taking to the streets before the Iraq War, but the man at the top had not heard our voice…

The hope of Julian Assange was based on the idea that one citizen can make a difference, and as a film-maker and citizen journalist, I decided to nail my colours to the Wikileaks mast some 3 years ago. That resulted in the making of roughly 80 films and 200 written articles on the subject of Wikileaks over the last 2 years.

Many Australians, across the political spectrum, liked the idea of a Wikileaks Party representative in the Australian Senate, and we sailed over the line to becoming a political Party. Its motto of “Truth, Transparency and Democracy” – which later mutated into “Truth, Transparency and Justice” – gave promise that we would set a precedent in political history.

When the Party collapsed, I travelled to Melbourne, from where our campaign was being run, to ask why. OMG…

Sam Castro - Why I resigned from the Wikileaks Party

My recognition of the importance of the Wikileaks struggle for transparency and democracy was inspired by the courage and rigour of Julian Assange, and the reliability of his publications. My active participation in the movement was encouraged and facilitated by the grass-roots activism of his mother, Christine Assange, and the idea that she and others conveyed to me, that this was about “Journalism with a Heart”.

I think we lost the heart somewhere along the election trail, and when she became “Inactive”, Christine’s solid moral compass. John Pilger apparently advised Julian against getting involved in Party politics, and I was reminded of this when Christine advised us to support Scott Ludlam, regardless of which Party he belonged to. That made sense, for Australians. At a time when we were floundering in grief, anger, confusion and alienation, her voice rang out to anchor us once again in common values and truth. Without Scott, you Christine, and some heart-felt apologies to our supporters, our party is over…

More revelations about the Wikileaks Party have emerged today from Gary Lord – aka Jaraparilla – who was a member of the WLP National Council for about a week. We discover now why he didn’t need to step down, contrary to legal advice he’d received from within the Party. We also learn of an unexpected connection between Wikileaks and James Ashby?? and of why the Party became divided. ‘Where’s That Party Review?’ is definitely a must-read…